Salman Rushdie Midnight's children Salman Rushdie Midnight's ...

arriers which permit families to survive; in the dust storm of the dying
palaces things were said and seen and done from which none of us ever recovered.
It was started by Reverend Mother, perhaps because the years had filled her
out until she resembled the Sankara Acharya mountain in her native Srinaga
r, so that she presented the dust with the largest surface area to attack.
Rumbling up from her mountainous body came a noise like an avalanche, which
, when it turned into words, became a fierce attack on aunt Pia, the bereav
ed widow. We had all noticed that my mumani was behaving unusually. There w
as an unspoken feeling that an actress of her standing should have risen to
the challenge of widowhood in high style; we had unconsciously been eager
to see her grieving, looking forward to watching an accomplished tragedienn
e orchestrate her own calamity, anticipating a forty day raga in which brav
ura and gentleness, howling pain and soft despond would all be blended in t
he exact proportions of art; but Pia remained still, dry eyed, and anticlim
actically composed. Amina Sinai and Emerald Zulfikar wept and rent their ha
ir, trying to spark off Pia's talents; but finally, when it seemed nothing
would move Pia, Reverend Mother lost patience. The dust entered her disappo
inted fury and increased its bitterness. 'That woman, whatsitsname,' Revere
nd Mother rumbled, didn't I tell you about her? My son, Allah, he could hav
e been anything, but no, whatsitsname, she must make him ruin his life; he
must jump off a roof, whatsitsname, to be free of her.'
It was said; could not be unsaid. Pia sat like stone; my insides shook like
cornflour pudding. Reverend Mother went grimly on; she swore an oath upon
the hairs of her dead son's head. 'Until that woman shows my son's memory s
ome respect, whatsitsname, until she takes out a wife's true tears, no food
will pass my lips. It is shame and scandal, whatsitsname, how she sits wit
h antimony instead of tears in her eyes!' The house resounded with this ech
o of her old wars with Aadam Aziz. And until the twentieth day of the forty
, we were all afraid that my grandmother would die of starvation and the fo
rty days would have to start all over again. She lay dustily on her bed; we
waited and feared.
I broke the stalemate between grandmother and aunt; so at least I can legiti
mately claim to have saved one life. On the twentieth day, I sought out Pia
Aziz who sat in her ground floor room like a blind woman; as an excuse for m
y visit, I apologized clumsily for my indiscretions in the Marine Drive apar
tment. Pia spoke, after a distant silence: 'Always melodrama,' she said, fla
tly, 'In his family members, in his work. He died for his hate of melodrama;
it is why I would not cry.' At the time I did not understand; now I'm sure
that Pia Aziz was exactly right. Deprived of a livelihood by spurning the ch
eap thrill style of the Bombay cinema, my uncle strolled off the edge of a r
oof; melodrama inspired (and perhaps tainted) his final dive to earth. Pia's
refusal to weep was in honour of his memory… but the effort of admitting it